AMD Takes the Crown from Intel for the Fastest Chip in the World

AMD has apparently once again (conveniently?) leaked the benchmark figures from its soon-to-be-released flagship 32-core Threadripper processor, showing just how far it has come both in terms of value and performance in the past few years.

While, on paper, there should be no direct competition between the 32-core chip from AMD and Intel’s 18-core current flagship chip, Core i9-7980EX, their top-end nature makes comparisons inevitable.

Cinebench Scores

Measured using the Cinebench benchmark, the Threadripper 2990WX achieved a 53% higher score than Intel’s processor, scoring 5099 points compared to 3335 for Core i9-7980XE. Both processors were tested on similar machines and the results were published early by AMD France’s website.

However, there are speculations that the benchmark was run on an earlier, non-finalized version of the chip, and subsequently could offer even better performance on the final, release version. The processor can still claim the bold title of “most powerful desktop processor in the world”.

Threadripper 2 still uses the same TR4 socket as its predecessor, which makes the processor easier to replace for its upgrades.

Price and Availability

AMD has already placed the 32-core Threadripper 2990WX, up for pre-orders, with expected delivery sometime in the middle of this month. Coming with 64 threads, it’ll cost $1799, which is very impressive considering that Intel’s flagship 18 core Core i9-7980XE, which it just beat handily, costs $1999.

That’s not even the only option, with AMD’s 24, 16 and 12 core processors being in development and ready to launch either this month or in October, for as low as $649. Whatever Intel plans to do with its upcoming 5.0 GHz 28-core processor, it needs to do fast. And their answer will most certainly be much more expensive.